A Despair of Demons (Travelers, Book 1)

by Cassy Campbell

  “More like the sweep team,” Trent said.

  “They may not have a building to clean. We left a raging wildfyre on fifteen.” Jordan grimaced as he tossed a head into the elevator left-handed. Liv wondered how much pain he was in. That ibuprofen had been hours ago.

  “Yeah, we sort of left one on five, too,” Gin said.

  “I’m not sure if y’all noticed,” Ben said, “but this elevator’s burning like gangbusters too.”

  “Let’s send it to fifteen,” Jordan suggested. “Then it won’t start another fire somewhere else, at least until the cables or floor burn through and it falls to the basement.”

  The others agreed.

  “Hey guys, I’m in!” Gin called.

  Trent tossed the last head into the elevator, leaned in, and punched fifteen on the panel of the burning car. He pulled back fast and paused to carefully probe his eyebrows.

  Connor threw him a smirk. “You’re beautiful!” he said in a stage whisper.

  Trent scowled and flipped him off.

  Connor laughed.

  Liv followed them in a crouch to Gin’s security station behind the desk and took a closer look outside. “Wow, it’s really a circus out there.”

  “Tell me about it,” Gin said as she gestured to the computer terminals, now showing feeds from the outside cameras.

  People milled everywhere, standing behind barricades and yellow tape that read ‘POLICE LINE—DO NOT CROSS,’ gawking at the building or talking to each other with excited gestures. It looked like every policeman in the city was out there, and of course, the news vultures circled. “So much for zero presence.”

  “We’ll be lucky to make it out of this without the whole world finding out about the DEPOT,” Jordan said, “not to mention actually finishing this mission.”

  “Speaking of.” Connor gave Gin a pointed look.

  “Yes, sir!” She mock saluted and tapped keys. The outside scenes disappeared to be replaced with empty hallways, rooms, and elevators. The three computer terminals behind the desk showed four pictures each. She manually switched to different cameras every few seconds, giving them a chance to see that there was nothing in any of the pictures, until they got a look at the raging wildfyre on five and fifteen. Some of the cameras on five weren’t transmitting, and they saw only black squares.

  “Hope no one was hiding out on those floors,” Ben said with a sick smile.

  Connor looked at Trent. “How long before the structure starts to come down?”

  “Normal fire, it wouldn’t come down at all. The steel frame wouldn’t burn. Wildfyre burns really hot, burns everything.” He considered. “Maybe one and a half or two hours before ceilings and floors go. Probably three and a half to four hours before the walls start to buckle.”

  “Fucking Jesus H. Christ on a cross.” Connor viciously scrubbed his face. “It’s been, what? An hour fifteen, maybe, since the fire on five was set?”

  “About that,” Gin agreed.

  “And maybe forty-five minutes for level fifteen?”

  “Probably,” Jordan said.

  While they continued to study the ever-changing camera images, scouring the building for the missing workers, Connor pulled out a grenade. “Liv. Jordan.”

  They turned to look, and Jordan looked surprised. “When did you start carrying antique grenades?”

  “Since I picked one up from a storage box in Hell’s skyscraper.”

  “What?” Liv was stunned. “How is that possible?”

  “That’s my question.” Connor spun the grenade so they could see the writing. “Is there any chance this was developed in Hell?”

  Liv shook her head. “I don’t see how. If it had been, it wouldn’t have come with you.”

  Jordan agreed. “That’s clearly US ordnance. The demons’ writing is completely different; they didn’t manufacture that.”

  “How about cardboard? They manufacture that?”

  “Now that you mention it,” Jordan said, “with their level of technology, I’d expect wood boxes. I should have noticed the cardboard when we were there.”

  “You were a little distracted by your near death,” Liv said.

  Connor jerked his head at the grenade. “So it came from Home World?”

  “Seems likely,” Jordan said, and Liv silently agreed.

  “Then explain to me how it sat in a storage box in Hell.”

  Liv searched for any possibility, and came up with nothing. “I can’t. According to the rules of Travel as I know them, that shouldn’t be possible. They shouldn’t have been able to bring something there from our world at all.”

  “What happens when you put it down?” Jordan asked.

  “Let’s find out.” Connor took his hand off the grenade.

  Gin said, “Connor, there’s no one on these monitors.”

  “Are we even sure they’re still here?” Ben asked.

  Connor frowned. “They signed in today. None of them signed out. There are twenty-seven people on that list.”

  “Do you have any other way of searching for them?” Trent asked. “Infrared, motion sensors, something?”

  Gin shook her head. “Not from here.”

  “All right,” Connor said, running his hands through his hair as if to scrub an idea into his head. Or out of it. “We don’t have a choice. There’s no time. Gin, Ben, and Trent stay here. Do a floor-by-floor search for the missing scientists, see if you can find any evidence of stolen technology. Or any object they may have taken with them.”

  “We already know they took something off fifteen,” Jordan said. “We heard them in the lab.”

  Connor nodded unhappily.

  “What are you three going to do?” Trent asked.

  “We’re going to Hell. We’ve got a little mystery to solve.”

  “There might be workers over there too,” Liv said. “Nathan employed Travelers to steal ideas for him.”

  Connor nodded again. “We’re on a time crunch. Let’s move. If you find anybody, send them to the lobby and outside. Tell them to get the people outside back, before the building comes down. We’ll meet on the roof in ninety minutes. Keep your radios on unless you absolutely need silence. Everyone clear?”

  Everyone was.

  “Move out.”

  “Con.” Jordan pointed to the countertop where Connor had set the grenade. It was gone.

  Liv felt a jolt in her stomach. She wasn’t sure if it was excitement at discovering something new or fear at finding out the rules of Travel were more like guidelines.

  Connor turned expectantly to her. “Liv?”

  “I don’t know. It’s oriented to Hell as its home world. But in that case, you shouldn’t have been able to bring it here.”

  “That’s what I thought. Hell on mark.”

  Chapter 28

  Liv and Jordan arrived in Hell together, Connor fading in a split second later. When she followed the First Rule, Liv saw the demon they had beheaded still lying in a pool of its own blood on the burgundy dirt floor. It was a relief to get out of the strobing smoke-filled room on the other side, and she took a grateful breath of clean air.

  Here, there weren’t any windows. The building was just a giant pole barn with exposed steel beams and metal sheeting on the outside. The floors above were made of wood—as were the stairs, she noted as she looked toward the hallway where the elevators had been in Home World.

  Sweet.

  Jordan looked around too. “You know, it’s weird. I didn’t think they had steel I-beams. The buildings in the Wolf’s city didn’t have them.”

  “If they can make sheeting, they can make beams, right?” Connor asked.

  “Not necessarily.”

  “So what does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just interesting.”

  Connor snorted. “Scientists find every-damn-thing interesting, whether it’s pertinent to the mission or not. Move out.”

  They headed for the staircase which was so steep it was more of a ladder. The fi
rst seven levels went quickly: they were mostly empty and there were no interior walls or rooms. At level seven, the floors became two-story warehouse floors, still mostly empty. They reached level thirteen without finding anything, but as soon as they stepped off the ladder they heard grunting voices.

  There were a lot more supplies stored on this floor—piled boxes, mysterious objects draped in dusty sheets, and several shiny pieces of machinery that looked as if they had just been set down.

  Jordan whispered, “Con, I don’t know how, but I think this stuff is from Home World too. See the manufacturer’s stamp?” He pointed to the serial number stamped along the side of one of the machines that looked like a combination car-engine and drill-press.

  Connor glanced at it. “We searched this level before, but we were looking for demons, so I didn’t pay much attention to the equipment. One problem at a time.” He nodded to the growling voices coming from the far side of the room.

  Connor indicated that he would take point, Jordan would follow, and Liv would take rear guard. They moved forward, stopping at the last stack of boxes.

  Four demons huddled around a piece of machinery in a clear area. One was smaller and shorter than the others, and his movements seemed off. Connor held up his fist in a hold fire command.

  Liv wondered why, but her question was answered a moment later when the demons stood.

  One of them was a man.

  Connor stepped out from behind the boxes and said, “Nathan Blank, I presume.”

  The man and the demons whirled to face the intruders. Liv recognized Nathan as he spoke. “What are you doing here? How did you get here?”

  “Probably the same way you did,” Connor answered. “Although I think I keep much better company.”

  Nathan snarled and said something to the demons in a guttural growl.

  “Get them,” Jordan translated.

  Nathan threw Jordan a startled look, but his face smoothed instantly as the three demons leapt forward with matching snarls. Jordan took aim and fired on the lead demon. Connor also opened fire, aiming for the neck.

  Liv knew that wasn’t going to work, and she wracked her brain to figure out how they could kill three demons without lasers. If only they’d been able to take the P90-bayonettes with them!

  As she expected, the bullets only made the demons angry.

  Jordan holstered a gun, bent and pulled his boot knife, and threw left-handed. The lead demon caught the knife with its eye, and it faltered and slowed the others behind it. Liv sidled to the side as it regained momentum and came at Jordan. It slowed to close with him, and she darted behind its wing and reached up to shoot it point blank through the side of the neck.

  Her knife took off its head, and its body fell to the floor as the head rolled away, the now-sightless eyes still wide with surprise.

  The demon behind her bellowed like a bull when it saw its fellow fall to the ground, but plowed forward. Liv danced out of the way as it came at her, but Connor’s and Jordan’s fire drew it back to them.

  Jordan shot it in the throat as it reached to swipe at him, and it faltered to a halt like a broken wind-up toy. Jordan reached forward with his knife as it gurgled and wheezed, but it turned with that creepy speed to follow his movement with razor-tipped fingers. He barely managed to leap back in time.

  As the demon swiped at Jordan again, Liv shot it from behind. Another head rolled away, this time with the expression frozen in terrifying rage.

  The remaining demon stopped, stared at the two heads and two lifeless bodies of its companions, and turned tail. It was out of sight in seconds.

  Connor leveled his gun at Nathan while Jordan did the same.

  Liv held her dripping knife in one hand and her gun in the other, both pointed at the floor.

  Nathan turned to look after his fleeing demon. “Coward!” When he got no answer, he turned back to Connor’s group with a pleasant smile, as if he hadn’t just ordered demons to kill them and then screamed in anger when they failed.

  “So. Gentlemen, Liv, what can I do for you?”

  “We’re here rescue you from the demons raiding your company headquarters,” Connor said, “but I feel a little superfluous now.”

  “It’s my company; I can do what I want with its assets.”

  Liv glared. “The technology isn’t yours, though, is it? You’re stealing from the DoD and literally giving our technology to the demons. I just can’t figure out how.”

  Nathan laughed. “It’s so simple. I’m insanely intelligent. More than a mere genius. I discovered that things can be moved between worlds, if you simply change their orientation. So I developed a machine that does exactly that.”

  Connor asked, “What do you get out of funding the demons’ raids?”

  “Genetic research. An army. New technology from countless worlds.”

  “Why?” Liv asked. She’d known what kind of person he was, but even she hadn’t thought he’d stoop so low.

  “Woolfe and I had a plan to rule worlds.” He put his hand to his heart in a mock gesture of fealty. “My greatest lieutenant. He harvested that World of the Damned for me. You didn’t notice? You must have at least wondered where all the corpses went.”

  Liv spoke through suddenly numb lips. “He’s talking about Necropolis. We wondered where their bodies were. It was him.”

  Nathan smiled widely. “Where do you think they got the bioweapon that killed them all in the first place?”

  Liv snarled, “You bastard.”

  “You took the bodies? All of them?” Connor’s glare should have frozen Nathan solid. “Why?”

  “I needed DNA. I’m trying to create a new super-demon. I needed the right raw material.”

  Liv was stunned. “Demons with human DNA?”

  Nathan nodded. “Hybrids with all the power but more intelligence, and the ability to interbreed.”

  Jordan said, “That’s why Woolfe was raiding all those worlds? You gave him your orientation machine so he could steal raw materials and technology, and in return he and the demons stole people as DNA samples for you?”

  Nathan bowed. “You understand.”

  Jordan’s gaze sharpened. “Where did you finally find the right DNA?”

  “I’ll never tell,” Nathan sing-songed, and laughed, a high skittering sound that echoed in the warehouse.

  “Why do this?” Connor asked.

  Nathan stopped laughing abruptly. “Because I can. Obviously.”

  “So,” Jordan asked, “why call in a distress signal tonight if you were the one breaking in? Did you think you wouldn’t get caught?”

  “Well, it would be pretty incriminating if I was in my building and didn’t notice a horde of demons come to steal my research, now wouldn’t it?”

  “And that’s why the demons were going from room to room and floor to floor,” Jordan said. “It would be incriminating if they knew right where to look to find what they wanted.”

  “You understand,” Nathan repeated.

  “Do you really think anyone’s going to believe that demons figured out how to change an object’s orientation?”

  “Oh no, they stole that from me, too. Along with the machine that should have kept you in Hell.” Nathan’s grin looked like a shark’s. “Woolfe screwed up there, but he’ll be punished.”

  Jordan asked, “What about the punishment for your failure?”

  “I haven’t failed. This plan is still going perfectly.”

  Connor ground his teeth together, but when he spoke, his voice was calm. “This is all fascinating, but we’re on a timetable. What say we take him back with us?”

  “No.” Nathan dashed to the side, then burst into a whirlwind of atoms.

  “No!” Liv echoed, and dived for him. His mad leap had put him closer to her.

  “Liv!” Jordan yelled as he saw what she was going to do.

  Liv just got a hand into the whirlwind that had been Nathan when he disappeared. She threw herself into the space between worlds and followed.


  * * *

  Liv would have liked to rematerialize with a hand on Nathan’s arm, just before she threw him to the ground, tied him up, and stomped on his face for good measure.

  Unfortunately, as she assessed her surroundings, she realized the only evidence of him was the sound of footsteps coming from her right.

  She was in a dark room with light shining in from the hallway. The walls were drywall and the door was metal, so they must be back in Home World. As high up in the air as they had been, there was nowhere else for Nathan to go.

  All this took less than a second. As she moved to sprint for the door, Jordan materialized at her side. “Come on!” she shouted, and tore out the door, Jordan on her heels.

  They hit the hallway, and she caught a glimpse of Nathan as he dashed around the corner ahead of them. As she ran, she clicked her radio. “Trent, come in.”

  She waited, pounding after Jordan around the corner, but there was no answer.

  “Ben, Gin, do you read?”

  Still nothing.

  A door slammed ahead of them and Liv followed Jordan into the stairwell beyond. The stairs were industrial metal grid with a flimsy-looking railing bolted to the wall.

  “This doesn’t look like Innerstellar Technologies.”

  “No,” Jordan agreed as he took the stairs two and three at a time. “I don’t think we’re in Home World.”

  “Then how did you follow me?” Liv set up a two-stair rhythm to keep up with him. She tried not to look down—the grating was too see-through and the ground was far too far beneath them. It made her dizzy.

  “I just felt for you, and followed.”

  Below, another door slammed.

  They reached the landing and Jordan reached for the door’s metal handle.

  “Jordan, wait.”

  He turned, questioning. “He’s getting away.”

  “I know, but we should have a plan of attack instead of just bursting in half cocked.”

  He settled back as if this was just a debate while they waited for an elevator. “What do you propose?”